Cowgirl
by whiteknight77
Summary: Set immediately after TNG's "Unification" Spock is still on Romulas. When an orphaned infant is discovered, Spock moves to have her raised by a foster family on Vulcan. However, some believe he may have ulterior and darker motives...


He pushed is way through the wreckage, ducking under broken charred bits of the infrastructure that had fallen when the walls were razed. The house had been completely totaled. Even for the Romulan authorities, this was excessive carnage. An example, clearly, meant to be heard by other "terrorists" that sought reunification between Romulus and Vulcans. Labeled enemies of the state, they hid in the underground of the inner urban core of the biggest cities, speaking only in whispers and shadows. Spock had warned Nekkan several times it was necessary and logical to be more prudent, but his voice could not be stilled even by Spock's most eloquent pleas. Now, a Romulan disruptor had done the job. Spock felt a rush of emotion as he silently mourned for the senseless death that surrounded him, but he quelled it. His face remained impassive as his gaze fell up the spot where the bodies should have been, but the disruptor left no traces. It was complete annihilation. The silence almost screamed with the echoes of what had happened just hours before. Spock's physic powers, which he had been honing all his life, picked up on the terrible energy that had filled the room when their screams were still audible.

It was a surprise to hear the crying. For a moment, Spock attributed the sound to his own mind, creating what probably had been heard as the Romulan authorities broke down the door. But there it was. Real crying. A child's crying. Spock deftly moved through the wreckage towards the sound, moving debris swiftly but carefully. She was not difficult to find. The infant was almost completely unharmed, save a few bruises around her head and shoulders. Of course he would have to bring her to a healer to ensure no internal damage had occurred, but, macabre as it was, he knew if she had internal bleeding she would not have survived this long. She must have been knocked unconscious sometime during the attack. Perhaps she had fallen under a table, or out of sight in a corner. The Romulans left no prisoners. Her unconscious silence had saved her life. But she was awake now, screaming for parents who would never hold her again. Spock gently lifted her out of the broken glass. He had prepared himself for the emotional torrent that would she was creating so he did not cringe at the excess. She was so small, her emotions seemed to outweigh her small body. Spock had never been particularly adept with children. As of late he had began to appreciate working with young people, adolescents who believed their generation could stimulate change. However, that was not the same as a crying infant he could not even speak to. He felt slightly awkward. A feeling he did not relish. Somehow, Spock remembered a friend, a human doctor who had tried to teach him the proper way of holding a baby.

"_No, no, Mr. Spock, you have to place your arm under here to support its back, and this hand here to support its head."_

"_I would rather not…I would rather not. Thank you." _

For a moment Spock felt like smiling at the memory, but it passed as quickly as it came. Remembering that day with perfect clarity, Spock followed the doctor's instructions. His photographic memory allowed him to see the doctor's movements, watch him cradle the child with incredible delicacy. Spock mimicked the actions perfectly, but the child shrieked all the more. She wildly thrashed her limbs, pushing him away with all the minute strength she could gather. The doctor was long since dead. McCoy had died peacefully after a long and happy life. Spock accepted that his human loved ones would die long before him, maintaining that is what not logical to fear it. Pushing the memory aside, drew the child in closer to his body. She was quite cold. As he mastered holding the child with one arm (he noted it was easier to prop the child up on his hip) he used his other hand to gently graze her cheek with his fingers. After years of practise, it was no longer necessary for the tight, concentrated grip he had used when he first began to mind-meld. Now any physical contact was enough to create the bridge.

Fascinating.

The child's mind was nearly impossible to read. It was one jumbled memory after another, fully present, but not interpreted in order to make sense. The basic survival instincts were her one imperative. Food. Shelter. Water. Warmth. Until hours previous, these had all been provided to her by her parents. Now she used her only method of communication to find those things again. Spock had limited encounters with very young children, almost none, but he was not cruel. He immediately began to soothe her terrified, chaotic mind. Breathing deeply, he attempted to quell her fears with pleasant thoughts, soft images, inducing sleep. She fell asleep almost instantly, and rolled over in his arms to curl into the warmer folds of his robes.


End file.
